Today‘s dress is Nanette Lenore. I found it at a Goodwill for a few dollars. The cowboy boots are also thrifted.
I’m in LA with my Cohen family cousin Laura Geller. She is a rabbi. I’m very happy to be spending a little time with her before I leave for Big Sur tomorrow! But today I want to write about France. This blog is going to become a place where I share some of the stories I’m putting together for my memoir. Feedback and questions are welcome. The first time I went to France was with my family in 1999. I was 16 and it was winter. I don’t remember too much from that trip except going to Versailles. I wish I could have enjoyed family trips more, but they always had a lot of tension. I wasn’t good at getting along with my siblings. I also had a list of things I wanted to do, and if I didn’t get to do them I’d lose it. It wasn’t good. Less than a year later I was back in France—this time with the Rassias language study summer program. I was taking French in school, and this was a way to improve. The program was founded at Dartmouth by professor John Rassias. He developed a method to make French more instinctual through a variety of exercises. The program was a month long and included 2 weeks in Tours, followed by 2 weeks of travel, ending with a few days in Paris. It was summer 2000. I turned 17 on the trip. The group was pretty small, and many people were from NYC. It seemed like they all went to exclusive private schools, which I had too, until I left for LaGuardia to study voice.
Right away a few of the girls banded together. They always wore black and carried Herve Chapelier bags, which were very trendy at the time and came from Paris. They continue to be my favorite handbags today. I have many of them in different sizes and colors. I also met Herve Chapelier at one of his stores and it was akin to meeting a celebrity.
The summer wasn’t the best. Everyone was placed with a French family, in order to immerse ourselves into the language. My french “mother” worked for the program and had 2 little kids. It was like being the boss’ daughter with no special privileges. She was always around and she was pretty strict. The other program participants had teenagers to go out with and I was stuck playing board games. She wouldn’t even let me go out to discotheques. And inevitably, most of the other kids in the program began to dislike me. I have a real skill for pushing people away and saying the wrong thing. It’s weird because I think I make a good impression, but then it ends. I honestly couldn’t tell you why things went strangely that summer. But I met Tod and he and I stayed friends! Since then I have preferred to travel alone. No one can reject me and I can do whatever I please.
Five years after Rassias I was back in France again, this time for my semester abroad. I almost didn’t get to go because my grade point average was a little too low. I ended up taking a leave of absence and attending American University of Paris as a visiting student. More on this tomorrow.
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